The large-scale magnetospheric electric field observed by Double Star TC-1

oleh: Z. H. He, Z. X. Liu, T. Chen, C. Shen, X. Li, C. Carr, H. Rème

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Copernicus Publications 2010-09-01

Deskripsi

The relationship between the average structure of the inner magnetospheric large-scale electric field and geomagnetic activity levels has been investigated by Double Star TC-1 data for radial distances &rho; between 4.5 <I>R</I><sub>E</sub> and 12.5 <I>R</I><sub>E</sub> and MLT between 18:00 h and 06:00 h from July to October in 2004 and 2005. The sunward component of the electric field decreases monotonically as &rho; increases and approaches zero as the distance off the Earth is greater than 10 <I>R</I><sub>E</sub>. The dawn-dusk component is always duskward. It decreases at about 6 <I>R</I><sub>E</sub> where the ring current is typically observed to be the strongest and shows strong asymmetry with respect to the magnetic local time. Surprisingly, the average electric field obtained from TC-1 for low activity is almost comparable to that observed during moderate activity, which is always duskward at the magnetotail (8 <I>R</I><sub>E</sub>~12 <I>R</I><sub>E</sub>).